Visualization Mapping and Current Trends of Facial Contouring Procedures: A Bibliometric Analysis Based on Web of Science.

BACKGROUND: Facial contouring procedures become popular in recent years, but there has been no bibliometric analysis focused on this field. OBJECTIVE: Construct visualization maps and analyze the hotspots and current trends in this field using bibliometric analysis. METHODS: Publications on facial contouring procedures were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database from 2003 to 2022. VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and "Bibliometrix" R package were used to analyze data. RESULTS: Seven hundred and twenty-one publications on facial contouring procedures between 2003 and 2022 were included. The United States was the leading country both in publications (206) and citations (3941). Shanghai Jiao Tong University was the institution with the greatest contribution (35 publications with 379 citations). Hu J (17 publications) from China had the most outputs, while the most cited author was Rohrich RJ (321 citations) from the United States. The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery (135 documents) published the most research, and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery was the most cited journal (2755 citations). The most cited article focused on virtual surgical planning in mandibular reconstruction. Keywords co-occurrence analysis identified five clusters centered on "reconstruction," "augmentation," "reduction malarplasty," "face rejuvenation," and "orthognathic surgery," separately. "Hyaluronic acid," "facial feminization," and "orthognathic surgery" might be related to trend topics. CONCLUSIONS: The research on facial contouring procedures is booming. In the past 2 decades, hotspots in this field included: facial defects reconstruction, facial augmentation cosmetology, facial skeletal contour plasty, and facial rejuvenation surgery. The following aspects may be trend frontiers: precision and personalization, combined treatments, transgender facial contour, and facial contour shaping with fat and hyaluronic acid.

Biodegradable Microembolics with Nanografted Polyanions Enable High-Efficiency Drug Loading and Sustained Deep-Tumor Drug Penetration for Locoregional Chemoembolization Treatment.

Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), the mainstay treatment of unresectable primary liver cancer that primarily employs nondegradable drug-loaded embolic agents to achieve synergistic vascular embolization and locoregional chemotherapy effects, suffers from an inferior drug burst behavior lacking long-term drug release controllability that severely limits the TACE efficacy. Here we developed gelatin-based drug-eluting microembolics grafted with nanosized poly(acrylic acid) serving as a biodegradable ion-exchange platform that leverages a counterion condensation effect to achieve high-efficiency electrostatic drug loading with electropositive drugs such as doxorubicin (i.e., drug loading capacity >34 mg/mL, encapsulation efficiency >98%, and loading time <10 min) and an enzymatic surface-erosion degradation pattern (∼2 months) to offer sustained locoregional pharmacokinetics with long-lasting deep-tumor retention capability for TACE treatment. The microembolics demonstrated facile microcatheter deliverability in a healthy porcine liver embolization model, superior tumor-killing capacity in a rabbit VX2 liver cancer embolization model, and stabilized extravascular drug penetration depth (>3 mm for 3 months) in a rabbit ear embolization model. Importantly, the microembolics finally exhibited vessel remodeling-induced permanent embolization with minimal inflammation responses after complete degradation. Such a biodegradable ion-exchange drug carrier provides an effective and versatile strategy for enhancing long-term therapeutic responses of various local chemotherapy treatments.

Shape-Anisotropic Microembolics Generated by Microfluidic Synthesis for Transarterial Embolization Treatment.

Particulate embolic agents with calibrated sizes, which employ interventional procedures to achieve endovascular embolization, have recently attracted tremendous interest in therapeutic embolotherapies for a wide plethora of diseases. However, the particulate shape effect, which may play a critical role in embolization performances, has been rarely investigated. Here, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based shape-anisotropic microembolics are developed using a facile droplet-based microfluidic fabrication method via heat-accelerated PVA-glutaraldehyde crosslinking reaction at a mild temperature of 38 ° C. Precise geometrical controls of the microembolics are achieved with a nearly capsule shape through regulating surfactant concentration and flow rate ratio between dispersed phase and continuous phase in the microfluidics. Two specific models are employed, i.e., in vitro decellularized rabbit liver embolization model and in vivo rabbit ear embolization model, to systematically evaluate the embolization behaviors of the nonspherical microembolics. Compared to microspheres of the same volume, the elongated microembolics demonstrated advantageous endovascular navigation capability, penetration depth and embolization stability due to their comparatively smaller radial diameter and their central cylindrical part providing larger contact area with distal vessels. Such nonspherical microembolics present a promising platform to apply shape anisotropy to achieve distinctive therapeutic effects for endovascular treatments.